The 5th Australian & New Zealand Disaster and Emergency Management Conference will be held at Jupiters Gold Coast, QLD on the 30-31 May 2016. The Conference theme“EARTH; FIRE and RAIN”will continue to address planning, response and the introduction of innovative techniques in management of disasters, emergencies and hazards.

The 2016 Conference continues to grow and offer extensive resources, knowledge and network opportunities to those that work in the Disaster and Emergency Management Community.

Around the world communities are continually faced with catastrophic natural disasters including floods, bushfires, cyclones, earthquake, tsunamis and severe weather events. The results can be devastating with significant consequences to infrastructure, communities, businesses and the mental wellbeing of individuals.

What can we learn from the past and how do we become better prepared for future disasters, emergencies and hazards? How can Emergency Services adapt and work together to ensure efficient and quick recovery and reconstruction?

Bringing together leading representatives from fire, police, ambulance, emergency, rescue, volunteer, defence and health sectors the Conference will deliberate and discuss Disaster and Emergency Management issues confronting Australia, New Zealand and Internationally.

The Conference Program will be designed to challenge, inspire, demonstrate and encourage participants while facilitating discussion. The program will include an extensive range of topics with Keynotes, Concurrent Sessions, Panel Discussions and Posters.

The Conference is a joint initiative of four ‘not-for-profit’ organisations: Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC, Australian Institute of Emergency Services, Australian & New Zealand Mental Health Association Inc. and the Association for Sustainability in Business Inc.

Program Highlights

The program is intended to provide all participants with an opportunity to contribute and learn. The program will examine what we have learnt in the past few years and provided a comprehensive forum to address the expertise, competencies and systems relating to the preparedness for future disasters, emergencies and hazards and the ability to recover from them quickly and efficiently.

The program will include:

Keynote presentations by renowned speakers

Concurrent sessions, workshops and panel sessions

Networking Functions

Exhibition of leading industry professionals

Poster Presentations

Access to presenter podcasts and book of proceedings following the Conference

Abstract/sEmerging Technology and Capability Needs

Technologies that enhance response to disasters

The importance of technology

The rate at which we adapt to new technology

Using technology to improve responses and preparedness

Risk management technologies

1. Leveraging Technology And New Product Innovation To Enhance Fire Preparedness Along With Responses To Disasters

""The team at Colorado / Australian FireBreak and Hardened Structures USA / Australia knew that bushfire mitigation solutions that focus only on the home offer inadequate protection. Their goal was to engineer and construct a system that would protect the home and create a firebreak around it.

Our team has extensive experience with high-pressure water systems, fire science, threat evaluation, and fire systems engineering, and this specialized knowledge and skill allowed us to create a unique wildfire protection system.

The system’s innovative design which includes use of smart phones for activation via temperature sensors which not only covers the home in a spray of advanced hydro gel, but also hydrates the trees and vegetation around the home producing a micro-climate that lowers air temperatures, raises humidity, and acts as a natural firebreak.

The US Army is looking at placing a system on their bases with a physical “red button” and with internet deployment accessibility.

FireIce brands include;

1. FireIce Wildland – FireIce High Visability Orange HVO & Blue HVB - a proprietary blend designed exclusively for use in airtankers and helicopters, which has been procured by several wildland fire agencies in the USA

2. FireIce Shield – For First Responders

3. FireIce Extinguishers

FireIce Solutions & the IMCD, a leading company in sales, marketing and distribution of speciality chemicals here in Australia distributes to fire departments, police departments, emergency medical services and other first responders . . . the growing list of fire, police, hazmat and other municipalities adding FireIce to their fire-fighting arsenals.

FireIce, is an extremely effective and versatile product used both as a suppressant to extinguish fires and a fire retardant to protect assets especially when installed as a part of a technology based automated property defense system.

FireIce is now firmly entrenched as the industry-leading gel retardant brand providing cost-effective and environment-friendly products to all related agencies.""

We engineer fully-automated wildfire mitigation systems that become operational when sensors detect the UV wavelengths unique to fires. The sensors see the fire or embers coming and send signals to a proprietary controller. The controller starts a series of steps by mixing the eco-friendly FireIce with water, closing eave vents, and coating areas to be protected. The system also hydrates the trees and vegetation around the buildings producing a micro-climate that lowers air temperatures, raises humidity, and acts as a natural firebreak. By combining a Colorado / Australian Firebreak System with standard wildfire protection advice which includes thinning trees like the highly flammable eucalyptus, you can help mitigate the risk from a wildfire threat to create the Ultimate Bushfire Mitigation System (UBMS).

Homeowners and businesses turn to FireIce to protect their property from approaching wildfires. Cities use it to save lives and control dangerous utility fires. Firefighters rely on FireIce to quickly and permanently extinguish structural and wildland fires - it's the most versatile and efficient firefighting tool available.

HARDENED STRUCTURES Australia, NZ, Asia, USA are Professional Construction Program Management Companies specializing in the confidential planning, design and covert construction of self sustaining fortified eco homes, underground shelters or bunkers. They can serve as a primary dwelling, vacation home, corporate retreat, short / long term shelter or expanded multi-function compound. Hardened Structures works closely with a world leading supplier of military grade protective solutions like air filtration systems and ventilation units.

Clarry@HardenedStructures.com.au

3. FireIce Connecting And Safeguarding Our Communities

Getting the balance right to preserve public safety through innovative solutions that actively connect communities is an emotive one.

What is your most important asset? Of course it’s your home, your community and the families they house.

The team at Colorado / Australian FireBreak and Hardened Structures Australia ( fire shelters ) recognise this and know that bushfire mitigation solutions that focus only on the home offer inadequate protection in the face of impending disaster. Our goal was to engineer and construct a system that would protect the home and create a firebreak around it thereby engaging the wider community.

An active interest in keeping our most valuable assets our properties safe ( including data recovery ) is quite simply the most powerful driver in building resilient communities and connecting both local government and non-government agencies with industry in the adoption of risk management and mitigation strategies.

Our strategy of combining extensive experience in high-pressure water systems, fire science, threat evaluation, and fire systems engineering skills has allowed us to create a unique technology based automated fire protection system which has proven to build ‘resilient communities’.

FireIce, is an extremely effective and versatile eco-friendly solution ( aiding natural regeneration ) used both as a suppressant to extinguish fires and a fire retardant to protect assets especially when installed as a part of a technology based automated property defence system. Its application is ubiquitous across land, sea and air. The US Army is looking at placing a system on their bases with a physical “red button” and with internet deployment accessibility.

Firefighters rely on FireIce to quickly and permanently extinguish electrical, structural and bushfires. Cities use it to save lives and control dangerous utility fires. Homeowners turn to FireIce to protect their property from approaching bushfires.

The FireBreak team have extensive experience with high-pressure water systems, fire science, threat evaluation, and fire systems engineering, and this specialized knowledge and skill allowed us to create a unique automated fire protection system which has proven to build ‘resilient communities’.

Sydney and Melbourne his more record highs, as the Australian super heat wave continues. This is our future friends - so let's tune in for a listen.

The image of kids in the water clinging to a dock, under a fire-red sky, captured the situation. The great Australian heat wave of 2013 also struck the southern-most part of the country, the island of Tasmania.

Maybe this is the future anywhere trees grow, as global warming heats the planet.

Professor David Bowman is at the University of Tasmania in Hobart, teaching and researching Forest Ecology. He's a published expert on fire in the earth system.

When Dunalley Tasmania burned, Bowman was out of contact in the bush. He told his research team fire conditions were catastrophic, the worst he'd seen. Just last year Bowman was so concerned about the growing fire risk, he wrote the media a warning (which was ignored).

While the public thinks a couple of wet seasons after a drought is a good thing, forest experts around the world know that is the most dangerous time. The rain creates new fuel for bush fires - which are more likely as the planet heats up.

It gets worse when slow-growing tree species get burned over in relatively quick succession. Fires that would normally return in perhaps 75 years come back in 5 years. Bowman says some forest ecologies in the Southern Hemisphere are converting toward super fireweed species. For example the Australian Alps are in danger of an ecosystem change.

The climate impacts from fire soot has also been underestimated in climate models, Bowman suggests. The black particles absorb the sun's heat, raising warming. Fire smoke is a complex mix of chemicals which are also responsible for many deaths around the world. Much more needs to be understood about them.

We also discuss the extreme fire risk of the trend to plant "Eucalyptus trees" around the world, including in California and the Mediterranean. The Eucalyptus, Bowman thinks, may be a real fire tree.

David Bowman has also been working with an extended family of aboriginal people in Northern Australia over the past 15 years, trying to learn what they know about fire. That relationship is unique, with fire being a part of aboriginal culture. Too bad the colonists didn't learn from them.

Learn a lot in one short interview. This kind of fire becomes a positive feedback effect on the climate. More fires lead to more warming, which leads to more fires.